


Heal My Hurts

by CrackingLamb



Series: One Shot Wonders, A Collection of Junkyard Dog Stories [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Attraction, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 20:06:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12349752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: Nora wakes up in Hancock's bed.  How did THAT happen?  And where does she go from there?





	Heal My Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> Part two regarding Nora's memories of her first few days in Goodneighbor.
> 
> Corresponds with 'Chapter Two - Waiting on a Girl' in Junkyard Dogs.

Beauty is pain, Nate used to say, laughing as she tweezed her eyebrows. _Life is pain_ , she thought now, lying amid comfortable sheets on a thick mattress. Now she didn’t have to tweeze her eyebrows ever again. She wasn’t sure the tradeoff was so good. Actually, she’d guarantee the tradeoff wasn’t as good.

 _This world can blow me_.

She cracked her eyes open and didn’t recognize the room. The light from a lantern was too low to the ground to be her house in Sanctuary, not to mention she’d yet to find a mattress as deep and soft as this one. Sounds bounced off walls around her, voices, laughter, the clink of caps and the drone of an Assaultron.

_Wait, what?_

_Goodneighbor. You’re in Goodneighbor. You made a fool of yourself, got drunk in public and just about threw yourself at a near stranger_. It was still Nate’s voice in her head, but it was soothing while chiding.

 _He helped me. He apparently took care of me_.

She opened her eyes all the way and saw him at the end of the bed. He was sitting in a chair, boots propped on the end of the bed, white ruffled shirt in his lap, none on his shoulders – _the muscle definition in ghouls is so cool_ – patiently passing a needle back and forth through the material.

“Hi,” she whispered. He looked up and a crooked smile broke out on his face.

“Mornin’ Vaultsicle.”

That name again. It did things to her insides. Cold fear clung to her gut, memories of ice and the feeling of being trapped. Skeletons and mutated insects and the oppressive feeling of being underground with no way out. Now mixed with a ghoul’s gravelly purr with something like affection in it. The cold fear dissipated, turned to…something she couldn’t name. Comfort? Ease? Something less than panic but more than lassitude?

 _Big words for a woman who was so drunk off her ass she let a stranger touch her in a strange house in a strange town_.

 _It’s a strange world_.

“I’m still in your bed?” she asked, as if it were not totally obvious.

“You are.” He sounded wholly normal and not embarrassed to be sitting there half naked, while she lay curled on her side, watching him. There was the sound of a needle passing through fabric.

“What are you doing?” she asked. Was he sewing? Did people really still know how to do that?

“Mending.” He said it so evenly, like he did this sort of thing every day. The bed was big, way more room than one person needed. _Ah, but his reputation precedes him_ , her brain caught up. _You know why he has this big bed_. She flushed. She had a vague recollection of asking him about it once he’d tucked her in.

“Why?” she settled for asking. All right, so it was pretty obvious that one mended something if it was broken. She was broken. Could he mend her too?

_The fuck kind of thought was that?_

“It tore,” he said with half a shrug. Just one shoulder lifting and settling. A feeling not unlike that which she felt at the Slog came over her watching him. She could watch him forever if that feeling never slipped away. It was peaceful. She felt safe, cocooned. She could let her guard down. How did his shirt tear? Had she been more of a fool than she’d thought?

 _No, he held you while you had nightmares about me_ , the voice slid through her foggy brain. _He held you while you cried._

_I don’t cry._

_You did._

_I have no memory of that._

_I do_.

“What’s it like?” she asked, just to turn the subject from her nocturnal terrors inside her own head. She’d already asked these questions before, of Holly and Wiseman, but they had been reticent. They gave her facts without details. She was a detail oriented person. She wanted to know.

“Hmm?”

“Being a ghoul.”

“Ahh, well. It has its perks. I don’t suffer from rads, they heal, in fact. I don’t need much food or sleep. Slower metabolism. I’m pretty indestructible and I’ll live for fucking ever.” Basically the same things they had told her. Except that last bit. And his voice had an edge that theirs did not.

“Ghouls are immortal?”

“Well, let’s just say ghouls age really, really slow. You’ve met Daisy, she’s pre-war. And I’m guessing by the fact that you didn’t scream in horror upon arriving that you’ve met others.”

“Wiseman,” she said, not believing she hadn’t put it together before. Of course, her addled brain was still processing that she’d been asleep for 210 years. For her the war was only six months ago. She hadn’t put it together that those friends she’d made had lived every moment she’d been frozen. That the years had passed for them until they were a blur. No wonder they hadn’t talked about it. And of course, for them, they just assumed everyone knew that ghouls lived a long time, because why would anyone not know that?

 _It is such a strange world_.

“Yes, and Holly too. You know of the Slog, then?” Hancock continued, oblivious to her internalized revelations.

“Yeah, I…I defended them against some super mutants. They let me build some stuff, and got more settlers to live there.” She took a deep breath, as deep as she could. It didn’t hurt to breathe anymore. “I like to spend time there. It’s peaceful.” _That was a serious understatement, Nora_ , Nate’s voice laughed in her head. _You love it there. You would live there if you didn’t have fuck all to do everywhere else_.

“As long as those crazy raiders stay in their hellhole of a quarry. And the Forged don’t come out to play with matches.”

“Yes, there is that,” she agreed. _Yeah, let’s not forget the locals_. “I built some extra turrets on that side. I’ve had to deal with the Forged only once, but it was enough. Ugh,” she exhaled with a shudder. Goddamn crazy ass raiders with flamethrowers and a burning fetish. This world was so completely foreign she didn’t know where to begin. “Dunwich Borers is downright scary. ‘Course, it was in my time too. Some things never change.” She remembered the news stories about the quarry, how strange things happened there, strange accidents, strange deaths. It had made her skin crawl just walking through there, even after all the raiders and the ferals were dead. Like there were still eyes on her. Like there were eyes inside her head watching her every move. Even Dogmeat had felt it, growling and snapping at shadows. That terminal entry hadn’t made it any better. _I’m safe in the light, I’m safe in the light, I’m safe in the light…_

“How are you feeling?” She took another deep breath. It really didn’t hurt. She pushed herself into a seated position, keeping the covers tucked around her when she felt the slide of them against her bare legs. _Great_ , she thought. Had she stripped for him or had he just made her comfortable because he knew she was going to sleep like the fucking dead? _Blame the chems, not the company_. She still had her Pip-Boy, that mark of Vault-Tec that she couldn’t escape. It was heavy and cumbersome and she was forever knocking it into things and getting it caught in sleeves, but it was useful. It kept her grounded, told her things she wouldn’t otherwise know. Like now.

 _You slept for nearly twenty four hours straight_ , ghost Nate told her when she looked at the chronometer. _No wonder you feel so much better. When was the last time you actually slept?_

_I guess I needed it._

“Almost human again.” She could have bitten off her tongue. Did she really just say that to a ghoul? “Sorry.”

He didn’t seem offended. “No worries. You hungry?”

_Am I? I am._

She must have made a face or something, because he smiled at her suddenly, warm and friendly and…just there. Like they were two people sharing a pleasant conversation. Like they were friends. She’d like it if they were friends. He wasn’t anything like she’d been expecting.

“Pick your poison,” he went on. “I got some canned stuff around, it’s got rads though. Or I could maybe scrounge up something less…detrimental…I think.”

“Poison is right,” she said with a frown. Rads. Every morsel she put in her mouth was slowly killing her. It was like walking tiptoe across a tightrope over a steep drop. One slip, one misjudgment and she’d be laid up for days with rad sickness. But she had to eat too, or she’d waste away to nothing. Already she’d lost more weight than she ever had. She was vaguely disturbed with how thin she’d gotten. “You know what I miss? Bread. How come nobody makes bread anymore?”

“Not enough wild yeast.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if he’d thought about it before. As if he knew what she was talking about. No one had known what she was talking about, other than Wiseman and Holly. Daisy probably knew too, but she’d never asked. “You can still find it in places like DC and out west,” he continued casually. He was done with his sewing and thrust his arms into the sleeves, making his muscles jump and jerk. It was fascinating to watch, it was almost like he didn’t have skin at all, just muscles defined and striated over his bones. He was sinewy and lean like almost every ghoul she’d met – fat ass Eddie Winter being the notable exception. They just didn’t seem to be able to hold on to spare flesh under their skin, as rough and scarred as it was. He must have noticed her eyes on him, because he left it unbuttoned, let her keep looking. His eyes, so black but expressive, had a gleam in them that made her stomach do flip flops.

 _Whuh_ , she thought. _How could something so mangled be so devastatingly attractive?_

“You’re the first person to even know what bread is around here,” she said, her mouth moving without her brain attached. What were they talking about? Oh, right, bread. “Well, who isn’t pre-war, I mean. Why is that?”

“I read a lot. It’s a lonely life, being the Mayor.” She took in the big bed, the shuttered windows and the array of personal possessions laid out like they were on display without ever giving a hint to his inner thoughts. Everything was neat and tidy but the man himself. He was a playboy, she’d heard it all over town. He didn’t keep anyone for more than a night, female or male. He didn’t let anyone in. Deliberate or incidental?

“Somehow I doubt that very highly,” she remarked, just to call him out on it.

“Well, aren’t you a smart cookie?”

“Don’t tease about cookies.” He laughed outright. “Seriously, though, are you really that lonely?”

“It’s surprisingly hard to get good conversation around junkies.”

“Pfft, serves you right for expecting it. But aren’t the king of the junkies? Seems to me that would work out fine for you.” She knew she was baiting him, but it was fun. She missed fun. She was always so careful not to let out the verbal psychopath that was hiding in her thoughts, but he seemed to accept her, and maybe even liked her. The only other person she’d shown that side to was Nick Valentine, and he proved he could give as good as he got. But he knew too, knew what she’d lost. He knew more than most. He knew more about her than anyone. Nick had seen inside her soul and held it carefully cupped in his synthetic hands. He was her best friend in this crazy new world, and somehow the fact that he was plastic and metal and mechanical parts was fitting about that.

 _He held you too when you couldn’t take it anymore_ , Nate’s ghost reminded her.

 _He can’t give me what I crave…unfortunately_.

“That’s me, sexy ghoul king, at your service.”

“Don’t think much of yourself, do you now?”

“Ha, sister, I’m at the top of this pile of shit, and I know it.”

“Hmm.” That sounded both confident and critical, but she knew what he meant. The whole world was a shithole, filled with death, violence, chaos and brutality. Only the strongest could survive. She was slowly learning that she had what it took be a survivor.

Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her of more mundane needs. Like the very urgent need to pee. If she’d been asleep that long, it was no wonder she felt like she was gonna explode if she moved an inch.

“You get comfy, I’ll find some food for you.”

“Uh…Hancock? Where can I…pee?” She knew she was blushing and wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like it mattered. Everyone pees, right? He chuckled and pointed to a door set off to the side, around the corner from the double doors of his bedroom. Then he disappeared, going up the spiral stairs and out of sight.

She hauled herself out of the huge bed – noticing immediately that her haphazard stitches had been removed and the jagged tear was all healed up – and padded barefoot to the bathroom. She was expecting a bucket or some cracked porcelain bowl or something. What she found was downright luxurious by post-war standards. The toilet was crooked, but whole. There was a tub snugged up against a wall, attached to pipes, even.

_He has running water._

_He has running_ hot _water, remember? He told you so himself_.

She did her business and went back into the bedroom. The guards she had seen on her previous visit to the State House were downstairs, she could see them, but they didn’t look up at her or say anything. Still, it was nice to know they were vigilant about their jobs at least. No wandering off, no slacking the way she’d seen in other places. And they were armed far more heavily than those Diamond City idiots with their baseball bats. _Not their fault, that’s what Mayor McDonough gives them_ , the voice in her head said.

She found her clothes and the small pack she’d kept with a few essentials in it. Like a brush. She opened a pair of shutters and let in the sunlight, looking out across the ravaged skyline of downtown Boston outside the walls of this safe little nook and brushed the tangles from her hair. Nate had loved her hair, loved how long it was, loved the color even. She hadn’t really ever paid attention to it. She had been a strikingly unfashionable matron in their pre-war neighborhood. New mother, bored housewife. She couldn’t wait to get back to work, she remembered. She missed courtrooms and smart suits and not having spit up in her acres of hair. She’d cut it all off if it didn’t seem like a betrayal to Nate’s memory now.

She spied movement in the reflection of the room in the glass. A figure in an open shirt, hands full of stuff. He was looking at her. He was motionless, looking at her.

She knew she had her figure back after having Shaun; she’d worked hard at it. And six months living in the ruins of her former world had done the rest. But she was short – Nate had forever teased her about her platform heels – and she knew that she was skinny. She didn’t think she was enough of a sight to make a man like Hancock stop dead in his tracks.

 _Maybe it’s all that skin you’re shamelessly showing off_ , Nate’s ghost whispered, almost humorously. _Think about it, most people around have grime so ingrained they can’t get it off. You still shine like a pearl, my heart_.

 _Don’t…don’t call me that_ , she begged her own head. She heard Hancock clear his throat and she turned to face him, unprepared for the heat emanating from his eyes. He hadn’t just been looking, he had been _ogling_.

 _He’s interested_ , her brain said.

 _Thanks, I was previously unaware_.

“Food, and softer clothes. I can’t get you bread, but I did find you noodles.” He held out the steaming bowl, a pair of chopsticks sticking out from the top, just like the ones she bought from Takahashi that one time. First time she’d had carbs in who knew how long. They had been mouthwateringly good.

“Thanks, Hancock,” she managed not to drool on herself, or launch herself at him to get them.

“John,” he said suddenly. She glanced up. She’d gotten the impression no one called him by his first name, whatever it was. _Now you know_ , her brain supplied.

“John Hancock, American Revolutionary and signer of the Declaration of Independence.” He looked surprised that she knew who that historical figure was. His outfit made much more sense now. “Did you take out my stitches?”

“That’s right, and yes, I did.” She managed to cross the room at a sedate pace and accepted the bowl from him. She didn’t slaver, she didn’t drink it down piping hot. She didn’t look at the clothes he’d found. The clothes didn’t matter. Carbs mattered. She took the bowl and curled up in what appeared to be his favorite chair, if the stack of books next to it was anything to go by. There was even a pair of glasses folded neatly on top. _That’s adorable_ , she thought. She wondered how they looked on him. She eyed him with speculation. He was still watching her, she noticed. She tucked her legs under her gracefully. She was pretty comfortable in her own skin, and had learned that modesty was so overrated practically no one knew what it meant anymore. She didn’t care if he saw her in her underwear.

 _You like that he’s seeing you in your underwear_ , that voice slid into her thoughts. _You like what it’s doing to him_.

 _Shut up_ , she snarled internally. _I like what it’s doing to me too. It’s nice to feel like I’m desirable, so sue me_.

“Look, Vaultsicle, I have some shit I gotta do. Mayoral duties and all. You stay as long as you like, all right?” He looked almost uncomfortable, like he was having second thoughts. Or maybe he was scared.

_Scared of what, exactly? Surely not of me. Isn’t he a total slut anyway?_

“Sure, Hancock,” she said around a mouthful of noodles. She didn’t say his name. She understood about names. Preston called her _General_ , Codsworth called her _mum_ , Deacon called her _Bullseye_. Nick called her _doll_. Even Hancock had called her _Ms. Howard_. No one called her _Nora_.

_Wiseman and Holly call you Nora._

_They’re the only ones_.

“I need to earn it,” she said softly out loud. And the crazy part of all this? She actually wanted to earn the right to call him _John_. She liked the ghoul Mayor of Goodneighbor, she decided. She would like him even if she didn’t want to jump his bones until she died from it. She pushed the thought away for a later date. “About that job?”

“Yeah. Later. It’ll be waiting for you.”

 _Well, then that’s an invitation to come back again. I’ll be sure to take you up on it…John_.


End file.
